It wasn't enough that Mark Walker had to fire a Champions League warning at Celtic, Keevins couldn't help himself and had to jump on the bandwagon too

Yesterday at 12:34 PM

For a while now, a few of my regular readers have been asking me not write about Hugh Keevins.

They feel that when I comment on his inane ramblings that I’m being sucked in by him.

Reducing myself to his level, so to speak.

As much as I’d like to accede to their wishes, I just can’t.

Because this guy just grates at me with his bullshit.

And if I was to say nothing about, then who would point it out?

I’m not lowering myself to his level, in order to do that, I would want to just irritate Celtic fans.

Being a Celtic fan myself, I’m not in that particular business.

But Keevins is, and I’m never going to give him a free pass for that.

Yesterday, I highlighted an article Mark Walker of the Record wrote about our upcoming crucial Champions League tie with Young Boys on Wednesday night.

It was the usual garbage from the SMSM, talking of secret weapons and being fired major warnings by the struggling Swiss side.

I was going to say I thought that Keevins wouldn’t lower himself to jump on that bandwagon, but that would be utterly stupid of me.

So, imagine my lack of surprise today when I saw his Sunday morning article preaching the exact same crap Walker had been preaching to us yesterday.

Apparently, our defending at the moment is criminal.

And Young Boys will be facing the “Lost Boys”.

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but this is a side that already has the Scottish League Cup in the trophy cabinet.

A side that is 12 points clear at the top of the Scottish Premiership.

And a side that dominated Kilmarnock, despite the score line flattering Derek McInnes’ side, and secured their place in the fifth round of the Scottish Cup, thus keeping a world record treble dream alive.

On Wednesday night, this side has a chance to make the knockout stages of the Champions League.

But according to Hugh Keevins, we are the “Lost Boys”?

If that’s the definition of lost, then I’ll happily get lost with Celtic that way any time.

Now, this week’s article by Keevins is the ultimate exercise in contradiction in comparison to his article last Sunday.

I wrote an article about that, titled “Keevins decides he's now Lord Protectorate of the Celtic manager”.

How he changes tack is totally epitomised in this Sunday’s article.

Last week, he was all about what Brendan Rodgers had achieved as Celtic manager in both of his tenures.

Here’s what he had to say:

So, that would be 10 trophies won over two stays as Celtic manager. An Invincible season.

Overtaking Rangers in the league table of trophies won over the entire history of both clubs. Two defeats in 21 Old Firm derbies. Being on the verge of winning this season's Premiership title, probably before the league season has arrived at the split on April 12.

Having a favourite's chance of winning the Treble, which would be the ninth of Celtic's existence – and subsequently creating a world record. And potentially being one game away, against Young Boys at Celtic Park later this month, from progressing to the next phase of the Champions League.

Compare and contrast that to this kind of language, displayed in this Sunday’s article:

Young Boys versus the Lost Boys.

That's the nightmare scenario for Brendan Rodgers when Celtic face their crucial Champions League match at home against the Swiss side on Wednesday night. The manager must have experienced painful flashbacks to 10 years ago when he stood on the touchline at Dundee last midweek and saw his defenders concede one unnecessary goal after another in a 3-3 draw. Back to the night in London in May 2014 when the Liverpool side he was then managing were also held to a 3-3 draw by Crystal Palace.

It was the result that forced Rodgers to concede the league title to Manchester City immediately afterwards, blaming "criminal defending" for the fatal loss of points. Rodgers had no need to contemplate the same course of action on Tayside. 

For starters, I sincerely doubt the 3-3 with Crystal Palace in 2014 even entered Rodgers’ thought process.

There is a huge difference between a draw that cost him the League title in England over ten years ago, and a draw at Dundee when you are 16 points ahead in the Scottish Premiership.

In fact, there’s no comparison.

Yet Keevins, who is always trying to create something controversial out of nothing controversial at all, managed to make a comparison.

Of course, Keevins has also jumped on the “let’s slaughter Adam Idah” bandwagon.

Which seems to be gaining a huge, if unjustified, following of late.

Along with elevating our season thus far to crisis proportions, this is what Keevins had to say about that and Adam Idah:

The Dundee result meant Celtic had, in the space of a calendar month, lost three goals to R*****s twice and once to Tony Docherty's side. That's too often to be dismissed as a coincidence. The analysis of Celtic's short-comings doesn't end there.

Kyogo Furuhashi, whether or not his mind is elsewhere, has now attained the status of being irreplaceable up front. One look at Adam Idah tells you that is the case.

It's one thing for a Celtic striker to go 12 league matches without scoring but it's another altogether when the same player pulls out of a challenge with a goalkeeper to avoid the possibility of injury. The startling nature of Idah's non-combative instincts being exposed in that way might cause an opinion to form that Celtic could have a £9million waste of money on their hands.

So I guess that’s Idah written off then?

Look, I know I’ve been sticking up for the guy quite a lot lately, and maybe I’ll be made to eat my words.

But I’ll reserve judgement on Adam Idah until the end of the season, and when I see what his final goal tally amounts to.

I sure as hell won’t be writing him off this early.

Especially taking into consideration what he’s contributed up to this point since he joined a year ago.

Keevins, just like everybody else out there is taking the easy option, and victimising Idah because of his price tag.

But Keevins being Keevins, he couldn’t help himself with that one.

However, the tone in which he finishes his article sums up how completely pointless this whole article is.

Read this, and then I’ll explain why:

Yang Hyun-jun? What else is there left to say? Everyone loves a trier but it's a dangerous business to tell the fans what they're watching game in, game out is actually an optical illusion and he's better than he looks.

The Champions League is not the place to conduct an eye test concerning the South Korean winger. Wednesday night is when Rodgers has to pick his strongest team and hope his captain Callum McGregor can re-emerge from a sustained period of anonymity when the manager needs him most.

What is the point to that statement?

Is Keevins not aware that the only reason we’ve been playing Yang was because our first choice wingers were injured in the short-term?

And based on the fact both Nicolas Kuhn and Daizen Maeda were available and played last night against Kilmarnock, well, that should negate the necessity to talk about Yang at all.

Or Callum McGregor for that matter.

Who had a very good game against Kilmarnock, and looked somewhat like his old self again.

He scored a typical Callum McGregor goal to open the scoring.

Then again, we all know Keevins writes these articles on a Saturday, and doesn’t bother to include any assessment of how Celtic might have performed in their game on that day.

Which any journalist worth his salt would do.

But that doesn’t matter to Keevins, so for a good part of his article, he wings it, in the hopes that what he says might be relevant to what happens in Saturday’s games.

His comments on Yang and McGregor prove that his article was written before the game against Kilmarnock.

He finishes the article with this, as if laying down the gauntlet to Brendan Rodgers, whose praises he was singing last weekend:

Celtic have started to get periodic reminders that they're not as clever as they think they are – and last Wednesday night in Dundee was an exposé of inadequacy on the part of certain individuals. Not to progress to the next phase of the Champions League will introduce an anticlimactic dimension to the rest of the season for all associated with Celtic.

And they can have no excuse if they fail to win at home to Young Boys. Other than personal liability.

Oh, how Keevins wishes we might have an anticlimactic dimension to the rest of our season.

Think of the shite he could write with glee if that came to pass.

Sadly for him, I’ve no doubt he’ll be eating his words next weekend.

Because we know that on our game, we are more than a match for Young Boys.

A packed Celtic Park, under the lights on a European night, is a far cry from a cold winter’s night in Dundee.

Despite what Keevins hopes and wishes for, every player to a man will be up for that.

And that’s no disrespect to Dundee, who gave us a serious game on Tuesday night last, and they deserve every bit of credit due to them for that.

But there is no comparison between that game, and a crucial Champions league match, which if we win, will result in progression to the next round of the competition.

If the Celtic players can’t get themselves up for that one, they may as well call it a day.

We know they will though.

And I expect a special night next Wednesday night.

One to remember for all the right reasons.

One that not even Keevins could spoil….

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